Creating a Family – part 3 of the collaborative series Happy Holidays in Happy Homes

This post is the third part of a four part series about creating happy homes during the holidays.  The series, Happy Holidays in Happy Homes, is a collaborative effort between Angelique Felix, Jared Ritter, and myself.  If you’d like more info, check out my introduction post.

To create a family you need stepping stones.  And the stepping stones are things mentioned in the past two parts of the series.  In part one I discussed the importance of continuing to develop as a person and making a commitment to continued growth within a relationship with a significant other.  Part two focused on becoming a parent and how the process starts when we are children ourselves and continues throughout our life.

In creating a family you need to be an individual in relationships with others.  We are born into relationships with individuals … who are in relationships with more individuals.  Many of these individuals are related to us by blood, some by marriage, and some just by a special bond or connection.  It’s also important to mention that even if we have never met, be the person alive or dead, we are still in a relationship with them.  Their absence or presence impacts in various ways.  Positive or negative, it’s a relationship.

To illustrate let me share a conversation I had once with the father of a client.  The client’s parents had divorced and the father was at a loss on how to be a parent to the child.  He was a non-custodial parent, but was still allowed parenting time with his daughter.  When they shared time together it was, to say the least, difficult and extremely stressful.  He thought about giving up, walking away.  I questioned him that what made him think that if he wasn’t seeing his daughter anymore he wouldn’t be a part of her life?  I reminded him that he would always be a part of her life … whether he was physically present or not.  If he wasn’t present she would still think about him; wonder about why he wasn’t part of her life, etc.  It was up to him on how he chose to be in a relationship with her.

So, we are affected in many ways by members of our family in many ways … for better or worse, for good or bad.  It’s part of life.  What’s important as we go on at create our own families is to be mindful of how we are impacted by the people that make up our families.

With that in mind, it’s also essential to think about how we want to define what a family is for own children.  What does it mean to be a part of a family?  For my family we stress that being part of a family means we love, respect, share, and have fun with each other.

My husband and I talk about these values often with our kids and make sure that we are all following suit.  We also make sure we connect often we our extended family as they are important parts of our lives.  I’m very fortunate to live close to my parents, sister, paternal aunt and cousins, and both my grandmothers.  My husband’s family lives down South and although we don’t get to see them as often, we make a point to connect with them as regularly as we can.

The holidays are a time when we try to slow down and spend time with each other and reach out to our family members.  A time to remember how important family is.

Be sure to check out Angelique Felix’s (The Magic of Play) video post and Jared Ritter’s (of Solgave) post for the other writings in Part 3 of the collaborative series.  Also, check back each week for the last part of the series: Monday 3-12-2012: 101 Ways of Staying Happy.

The series is brought by you by three blogging parents:

Solgave.com is more than a blog, it’s a unique philosophy of life shared by Jared, an American now living in Sweden, and his wife Sunniva originally from Norway, and her 4 year old daughter Gabi, as they navigate the waters of life by focusing on the core elements that define them. Nature, animals, families, travel, healing, and overcoming obstacles are some of the things they share with passion.

AngeliqueFelix.com – The Magic Of Play is on a mission to bring play back in daily lives through bilingual songs, movement & creativity. Angelique teaches 0 to 6 years old in Italy, but comes from the Netherlands. She is a single mom loving passionately her only daughter Chanel every day.

AND ME, PLAYDRMOM!!!

We would be delighted to have you join us on our journey towards Christmas, please come back next week on one of our blogs!

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